I also liked the magic systems in 1 much better than 2 and 3, so I'd prefer if something with elemental experience was used again.

I thought it was the worst part of the game. It managed to make a really easy game feel grindy as you mindlessly cast useless spells over and over.

That was my main complaint too. It got really boring casting status effects repeatedly just to unlock better spells.

I haven't played 3 so I can't comment (it wasn't released in PAL-land), but I'd like there to be some degree of difficulty in a potential sequel. 1&2 gave you this fantastic battle system but wasted it by giving you almost no challenge whatsoever.

I'm so iffy on the Grandia series. The first one has a lot going for it, but spell leveling is annoying and it kinda devolves into "crazy demon destroying world" at the end. The second one has totally uninteresting characters other than Ryudo and his two lady sidekicks, but has a stellar battle system. The third one had a really interesting opening, with Yuki proving himself to his mother, in addition to that great combat... but oh sweet Moses was it a generic boring RPG in the end.

So what do I want out of a third Grandia game? Grandia has always had decent dungeons and skill systems with AWESOME combat, so keep all that. Give us characters that aren't your typical teenagers or outcasts - Ryudo was great because he isn't a typical teenager searching for adventure and Miranda was great because she wasn't your typical "mother of the main character." I'm not saying rewrite the book on every anime archetype, just... give us fully-realized characters that aren't obviously destined to be footnotes on tvtropes.com page.

Aeolus- What, I'm not allowed some wishful thinking, even if it's a little "pie in the sky?"

I'm definitely with many of you about music. With the Grandia games, I found myself loving and remembering the battle themes, but almost never the dungeon themes. Grandia 2's final boss music is one of my all time favorite final boss themes. The boss music from when you fight Mareg is excellent. Though my favorite boss music is from Grandia 1 when you battle Nana, Saki, and Mio simultaneously. It combines my favorite battle theme from that game with their whimsical theme and it's killer.

Grandia Xtreme may have been a meh game, but I agree with you folks that it had perhaps the best take on the Grandia battle system. Oh, and anything over "spell grinding" any day.

As for the topic at hand, I already said what I'd want in a hypothetical new Grandia game.

When it came to Grandia's magic system I found Xtreme to actually have the best one of the four titles.

Their mana egg fusion system allowed for pretty fairly balanced magic power-to-boss difficulty ratio. The natural rate of discovery for eggs resulted in just the perfect level of spells to deal with whatever boss was sent your way. And unlocking the strongest magics not only took time (unless you did insane early level grinding) but felt incredibly rewarding to discover. (I do Xtreme with no mana egg charts; and it's always a fresh feeling of joyful discovery when I figure out how to make one of the hyper eggs of doom on my own.)

Unlike 3...where as soon as you could fuse eggs you were able to create boss ending spells quite easily. XP

I actually don't remember much of 2's system. I think I ignored magic for the most part there. 1 was indeed a horrid grindfest in the late game. Plus there was always that feeling of getting screwed if you missed too many mana eggs and gave the ones you did find to party members who wound up perma-leaving. XP Such a dirty move. Always resulted in resets with that member never getting ANY eggs to account for it and refusing to give new people eggs until enough hours passed to be sure they weren't temp members. Pretty sure the game gives you more than enough for everyone but if you're not using a guide...you feel cheated.

Grandia 2 is the game that handled leaving characters the best I've ever seen.

Oh? That guy left? Let me unequip everything he had, then give you an item which will transfer all the xp he had then one other item to transfer all the move xp he had.Enjoy~~~(oh yeah, and you know that attack boost move you spammed at every boss? Let me unlock an ever more awesome version of that on another character)